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ALBANY, N.Y.

Until recently, the acid rain of dissent that has nagged the young presidency of Donald Trump the rallies and marches, the town-hall heckling, the phone lines jammed with calls from irate constituents was aimed mostly at those in Washington, with no room to duck, even for the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

On Friday, it found a far more obscure target.

Traitor! Traitor! a crowd of more than 100 protesters screamed outside a town-hall meeting held by state Sen. Jose R. Peralta of Queens. They were loudly venting at an assiduously uncontroversial state legislator who, as a Democrat in New York City, had been accustomed to cozier treatment.

You are empowering the Republicans everyone in this room knows it, one woman inside told Peralta as protesters shut out of the meeting banged on the windows. Your constituents are angry. We are probably going to vote you out.

The mathematics of power in Albany resists simple divisions. There are Democrats. There are Republicans. There are the Independent Democrats, a breakaway group of eight legislators who control the state Senate in partnership with Republicans an arrangement the Independent Democrats say empowers them to sway legislative priorities to the left, but that mainstream Democrats blame for blocking a more uniformly progressive agenda. And there is state Sen. Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat whose alignment with the Republicans has supplied them with a fragile majority.

For many liberal New Yorkers who assumed their state was thoroughly blue, the Independent Democratic Conferences very existence has come as a nasty, if galvanizing, surprise.

Though the next elections for the state Legislature will not arrive until fall 2018, liberal activists are already pledging to mount primary challenges to the conferences three most recent additions, Peralta, Sen. Jesse Hamilton of central Brooklyn and Sen. Marisol Alcantara of Manhattans West Side.

The mainstream Democrats, who have raged against the defectors at great and ineffectual length, are also eyeing the 2018 races.

Part of the protest is educating people on what is happening in Albany, said Harris Doran, a filmmaker from Washington Heights who is organizing protests at each of the eight conference members offices, starting this Friday with Hamilton. He said he had not known about the Independent Democrats quid pro quo with Republicans until getting involved in anti-Trump organizing efforts.

There is even a website, noIDCny.org, that describes the conference in terms more befitting a grubby conspiracy than a political deal.

If the Independent Democrats hoped they could hold liberal wrath at bay by fervently protesting Trump (Alcantara was arrested outside Trump Tower on Inauguration Day), listing all the bills they have passed (Peralta) or blaming Felder for enabling Republican control (Hamilton), they have been disappointed.

Just weeks ago, Albany insiders were all but taking bets on which mainstream Democratic senator might fall to the independents next. Such talk has dissipated.

For the first time in a very long time, people are paying attention, Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the mainstream Democrats, said Monday. We are in an awakening moment.

One political player who seems to have outrun the eruption so far is Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom liberal activists have accused in the past of stumping only halfheartedly for a Democratic majority. (Cuomos aides have always insisted that this is untrue.)

On Friday night, Peralta tried to explain to his constituents that he had joined the independent conference after a lot of soul-searching about what he called the failed leadership of the mainstream Democrats and the new presidency. He later accused mainstream Democrats of inciting some protesters.

Denying this, Stewart-Cousins suggested that the defectors were pursuing perks like larger offices, staffs and committee memberships.

Sen. Jeffrey Klein, the leader of the independent Democrats, said Monday that the idea that his group was siding with Trump couldnt be further from the truth, adding that his members had voiced opposition to many Trump policies.

Any assertion that his members were merely after perks were, he said, nonsense.

I think its a real problem, and I think its sort of a problem with leadership, that all of the sudden when a Jesse Hamilton or a Jose Peralta or a Marisol Alcantara want to be part of the Independent Democratic Conference because they want to get things done and they want to get things from their districts, somehow its some unsavory trade, he said.

Alcantara has said that she joined the conference after it offered support that was not coming from the mainstream Democrats. Over the weekend, she called the backlash racist: She and Peralta are Hispanic, and Hamilton is black.

They also represent districts in New York City that are more liberal than those of the five other members of the conference.

While no protests against Alcantara have emerged, constituents have met with her to press her to fight for liberal legislation on abortion rights and education funding, among other issues.

People have sort of this nascent political awakening happening now after President Trump was elected, and theyre learning these things, and theyre really unhappy about it, said Lisa DellAquila, an Inwood lawyer and activist who has urged Alcantara to join the mainstream Democrats. I think shes got a lot to prove to her district.

One of Alcantaras opponents in last years Democratic primary, Robert Jackson, may challenge her in 2018, according to a person close to him.

Asked Monday whether he had heard any complaints about his defection, Hamilton said no. He then began listing his accomplishments, like stints on the school board and his local block association.

Ive been on the ground for a long period of time and getting things done, he said.

He hastened to add, I have problems with the Trump administration.

Read more:
Breakaway Democrats in New York feel Trump backlash - MyStatesman.com